Sparkling White

The wine

Libby Sparkling White starts as wine. California grapes are picked early, pressed straight off the clusters, and fermented cold until the sugar is gone. The lots are brought together before a spinning cone takes the alcohol out. Aromas are captured and returned. Natural flavors are added after the removal, and the wine is carbonated into a swing-top bottle.

No grape is named. The producer calls the blend proprietary, which leaves it a white sparkling wine and nothing more specific. Grant Hemingway is the winemaker credited with building Libby, and the grapes are drawn from cooler California sites inside a sustainable vineyard program. The bottle is the light glass used across the range, crown-capped and meant to close again. There is no added sugar. The calorie line sits at 35 in a five-ounce pour, and the ingredient list is dealcoholized white wine, grape concentrate, natural flavors, and sulfur dioxide.

The producer’s flavor words are crisp pear, sweet citrus, and spring florals. They are a target, not a tasting. Until the wine is poured, that sentence does not earn a score. What can be said now is the construction: a dry ferment, a spinning cone, a flavor addition, and bubbles. The glass comes later.